Court Rules Probable-Cause Warrant Required For GPS Trackers 116
schwit1 tips this news from Wired:
"An appellate court has finally supplied an answer to an open question left dangling by the Supreme Court in 2012: Do law enforcement agencies need a probable-cause warrant to affix a GPS tracker to a target's vehicle? The justices said the government's statement 'wags the dog rather vigorously,' noting that the primary reason for a search cannot be to generate evidence for law enforcement purposes. They also noted that 'Generally speaking, a warrantless search is not rendered reasonable merely because probable cause existed that would have justified the issuance of a warrant.' The justices also rejected the government's argument that obtaining a warrant would impede the ability of law enforcement to investigate crimes."
To little to late (Score:4, Interesting)
They now have cameras, character recognition and databases that can track you pretty much anywhere.
What we NEED is a court to rule that data-mining constitutes an ersatz search and is protected.
Thank Goodnesss some sense.... (Score:5, Interesting)
.... has returned to someone in the Judicial system.
It's ridiculous that the government bitches about getting a warrant. GPS is more invasive in my opinion. Because if you are a person of interest and the Govt, feels that you should be tracked, then they slap that GPS unit on your vehicle and they will step onto your property to do it in many cases. So in the event that they're not parked outside your house watching your every move, they don't always know who's driving that vehicle. So in essence, if you lent your car to someone that is NOT a person of interest the government is now tracking the wrong person and violating his/her rights.
As least with a warrant, the request is on papers and the government could back up their tracking with that warrant should the 'person not of interest' have balls big enough to go after the government.
Re:More importantly... (Score:5, Interesting)
Astonishing isn't it? Warrantless searches are, themselves crimes. LEO are saying that they need to commit crimes in order to investigate crimes. I hate Law Enforcement Officers. I respect Police Officers. There is a fundamental difference between the two. One who identifies as a Police Officer recognizes that they are to serve the public by helping to keep the peace. One who identifies as a Law Enforcement Officers proclaims himself to be a tool of the state, to enforce any dictate of the state, no matter how offensive to the concept of a free people. Law Enforcement Officers (I'm Law Enforcement, we need to get Law Enforcement here, don't defend yourself - wait for Law Enforcement) need to be publicly shamed.
Establishing Probable Cause (Score:4, Interesting)
To me, the following bits from the article really strike to the heart of the matter:
The government also argued that if officers were required to obtain a warrant and have probable cause prior to executing a GPS search, "officers could not use GPS devices to gather information to establish probable cause, which is often the most productive use of such devices."
The justices said the government's statement "wags the dog rather vigorously," noting that the primary reason for a search cannot be to generate evidence for law enforcement purposes. They also noted that "Generally speaking, a warrantless search is not rendered reasonable merely because probable cause existed that would have justified the issuance of a warrant."
That seems to cast a dark shadow on the practice of NSA intercepts being used by the DEA to establish probable cause, followed by parallel construction [wikipedia.org] of that probable cause.
Re:Let's see if I got this, get this.. (Score:4, Interesting)
You raise an interesting point: I've always been of the opinion that there should be a concept of 'blinders' for crime not related to the immediate emergency situation.
ie: If you call the police to report someone invading your home with a gun, you should not be afraid that when the police enter your home they will discover that you were involved in some other crime and charge you with that. The rationale behind my opinion is that I feel it is more important that people not be afraid to call the police than it is for every minor crime to be prosecuted.
Kind of like a prostitute hesitating to call the police when she gets beaten up by a client because she is afraid of being arrested for prostitution. I feel it is more important that the violent person be arrested.